


straight into your arms

by outwardbound93



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Architect Niall, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Student Harry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-12
Updated: 2016-02-12
Packaged: 2018-05-19 23:01:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5983603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outwardbound93/pseuds/outwardbound93
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe that’s Niall’s favorite part of having Harry. They can sit at their desks two hundred miles apart and not even speak, but he can turn away from his drafting table and spot Harry poring over a giant book and it’s soothing, somehow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [goreallegore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goreallegore/gifts).



> HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my lovely and loved twin arwa. this one's for you. title is from vance joy's song by the same name. i couldn't ask arwa for help with the title, so i'm sorry if it's not very good.

Niall’s not paying attention until Theo headbutts him in the shin, and then he bends down to rub his leg. “What was that for?”

Theo takes hold of his hand and smiles up at him, the wee devil. Niall can’t help but grin back. “I want to go see Santa.”

“We need to get your mam and pop presents,” Niall reminds him. He tries to make his voice firm but gentle, like Denise’s always is around him. He’s never sure quite how to walk that line, always wants to make a joke, instead. “C’mon, little man.”

Theo reluctantly toddles along at Niall’s side as Niall steers them towards the Bath & Body Works inside the mall. He never knows what in the hell to get his brother and sister-in-law. Used to, he’d get them stuff for Theo, but he can’t well do that when they’re at home readying the house for the rest of Niall’s family. It’s Denise’s first time hosting the lot of them, a bunch of rowdy Irish Bostonites, and he knows she’s nervous.

Thinking about it, Niall realizes maybe Greg is, too, and that’s why he’s been piss drunk since Niall took the bus to their place this morning. Christ, but Niall can’t be around his brother. He’s not even a fighter, but he wants to loop his arm around Greg’s neck and pull his head down and squeeze until his head pops off, sometimes.

Not that he’s thought of it, like.

Niall looks down at Theo, who’s clutching Niall’s with an only slightly sticky grip. The first thing Niall had done when they got to the shops was buy him a cinnamon sugar pretzel, and he’s still got the residue around his mouth. “I love your dad, you know that, right?” Niall asks him uncertainly. He feels very like his own father, with this tiny hand enfolded in his own, and not quite the right skill set yet.

Theo pops two fingers into his mouth. He just squeezes Niall’s fingers, his wide eyes roving around all the candles and bath salts and body soaps, so Niall just tugs him gently along. “I don’t think your mam would like any of this. Do you?”

Theo cranes his head back to look up at him. “Mommy loves Daddy,” he says, sounding a bit like a parrot.

“Well, can’t get one of them in a store,” Niall says. Theo doesn’t laugh, so, feeling a bit silly, Niall scoops down and picks him up. Theo gamely squeezes Niall’s hips with his knees, clinging to him like a koala, and Niall concentrates on not feeling like he’s tricked Theo into giving him a hug two days before Christmas in the middle of a soaps shop that’s giving him a headache.

Niall lets Theo slither down in front of a phone case booth in the middle of the mall. Shit, it’s an awful gift but what else has he got? He’s got no other ideas, honestly. “Which for your dad, Mario Bros. or – Theo? Theo?” Niall looks around in a panic, but Theo’s nowhere to be seen, bopping around at Niall’s knees or tracing the pattern on the probably vomit-stained carpet with his tiny fingertip.

“Christ, fuck,” Niall murmurs. He spins on his heel, searching the booming marketplace for a tiny head of pale blond hair. His heart climbs up his chest and starts beating so hard that he might be sick. Oh, God. If he’s lost his stupid brother’s kid at the store, Jesus fucking –

There. Niall spots a pale glint of hair just between two people. He darts after it without thinking, like he’s been shot by a cannon. “Theo?” Niall asks. “Theo!”

Theo turns only when Niall’s just about caught up to him, he puts his hand on Theo’s shoulder and Theo turns. “See Santa?” Theo asks, pointing toward the cardboard boxes painted like gifts and bored adults in elf costumes stationed on either side of a bloke in a fake beard and costume.

And, alright. Niall’s old now but he remembers. Well, really he remembers being sat on Santa’s knee by Maura, crying his heart out, and Greg sat on Santa’s other knee, threatening to poke him in the eye. Christ, but it hurts to be poked in the eye. So Niall lets Theo drag him to the line to see Santa, “jus’ to remind ‘im.”

“I think you’ve spent too much time with the family, lad,” Niall says, swaying Theo back and forth gently by their connected hands. “You sound like me dad.”

“Dad, dad, dad,” Theo chimes, in the tune to Dora the Explorer. He’s started singing mostly in gibberish, and Niall loves it. He has maybe two or three hours’ worth of it saved up on his phone already.

It’s been some shit having to stay in New York to finish up architecture school, but it’s not for much longer. Niall would hate for Theo to grow up thinking – well, Niall knows what it’s like to expect someone to be there one day and for them not to be. It’s not quite the same as a big brother, being an uncle, but it’s the closest thing he knows.

Niall’s zoning out with Theo’s fingers still locked in his, trying to think of what to get Greg and Denise, when he realizes that the bloke ahead of them in line is talking to his nephew. Niall pulls on Theo’s hand the tiniest bit, and he stands up out of a crouch. Jesus, he’s so tiny when he’s all curled up like that, he’s the size of a soccer ball. “Shoes,” Theo says, pointing.

The bloke proffers his shoe to Niall and Theo. He’s wearing sparkly silver boots. “Thank you,” he says, smiling wide. Dimples appear in his tanned face, and he looks like something out of a damn toothpaste commercial.

“What do you say, Theo?” Niall prompts him softly.

“Thank you,” Theo says, and then he turns and stands on Niall’s feet, so Niall takes his other hand and steps from foot to foot for him like a robot. Sometimes Theo calls it dancing, sometimes he wants Niall to make fighting robot noises. Niall likes it all the same.

Niall smiles at the bloke apologetically. “We’re working on it. I’m Niall, by the way. This is Theo.”

“Harry,” the bloke answers. He holds out his hand to shake Niall’s, and then he thinks better of it. “This is Lux.” A little girl with bright blond hair peels her eyes away from an iPhone, where she’s playing one of those learning letter games. Denise has Theo on some of them on a Leapfrog, and they’re mad entertaining, especially when Niall’s drunk.

“Did the wife send you here for something?” Harry asks. “You have that look, like you know you’re meant to be doing something but you don’t know what.”

Niall laughs. “No, my brother’s wife. Is it that obvious?”

Harry turns to face him fully, and he’s wearing a shirt that’s barely buttoned even though it’s pissing snow outside. Niall can see how stiff his nipples are through his shirt. He’s got a knee-length coat on top of that, though, and his legs are long and lean, the part of his chest that Niall can see toned and tattooed.

Christ. Niall’s harder up than he thought, although the way the guy’s looking at him isn’t helping anything. There’s almost something predatory in his ruddy smile, the way he’s sizing up Niall. Niall tries not to be flattered. Especially not with a baby standing on his feet, clinging to Niall’s hands like he might fall to his death if he lets go.

The little girl, Lux, slips her phone into Harry’s pocket when the line moves forward. It’s not taking as long as Niall thought, they might even be out of here in time to pick up a pizza from George’s on the way home. She looks up to Harry, her face taut, like someone’s just told her that her favorite stuffed animal is in the hospital. “I don’t know what to ask for,” she admits.

“Well,” Harry starts, his voice immediately going soft and intense, “what do you want?”

“I don’t know,” Lux admits. “I know mom and dad already got me a bike, and I know you’re planning to get me an Easy Bake oven, so –” she talks over Harry’s indignant squawk “– I don’t know. But it’s against the rules to waste a wish. Isn’t that right?”

“Well, sure, but,” Harry bites his lip. “You know, you don’t have to wish for stuff. You can wish to meet Mickey Mouse or go to Disney World or for your mom to find a new boyfriend.”

Lux contemplates this. Niall watches on, trying to pick something up about how to talk to kids or something, he’s never paid attention before he’s got Theo around all the time. He scoops Theo up and smells him. “Did you poop your pants, Theo?”

Theo puts his tiny clammy palms on either side of Niall’s face. “Niall,” he says seriously, although it always comes out sounding closer to “Nahl.” Niall waits for him to tell him something important. Instead Theo just keeps peering into his eyes like he’s about to see to his soul.

“But did you poop yourself?” Niall asks, when they’re very near the front of the line and he’s worried about Santa publicly embarrassing his two-year-old nephew for not being potty trained yet. He’s not sure how these things work, maybe the boy’s on a timer or something, and Niall forget to set it.

“You’ve got to pull his diaper back,” Harry says helpfully. “Like, you know, to look down the back of his trousers.”

Niall holds Theo out at arm’s length. “Would you, like. Can you?”

Gamely enough, Harry steps forward to peer down the back of Theo’s diaper. “Well, good news. Looks like the baby’s just gassy.”

“Let me know if you do poop,” Niall tells Theo, who goes back to crouching down to study Harry’s boots.

“He’s a cute baby,” Lux observes. “Maybe I should ask for a baby for Christmas.”

“Not until you’re at least thirty,” Harry says, sounding like he’s swallowed an egg.

“Mom says to wish for a boyfriend for you,” Lux tells him. Harry keeps making that face like he’s choking on air. “Should I wish for that?”

“I – It’s your wish,” Harry says weakly. He won’t look at Niall. “I don’t want to take your wish, wish for something to make you happy.”    

“Can we go to McDonald’s after this?” Lux asks quickly.

Harry’s soft marshmallow face firms up. “No,” he says sternly.

Theo tugs on Niall’s hand. “Can we?”

“Yeah, sure,” Niall says distractedly.

Lux turns to Harry like Niall’s just accidentally proven something, and Harry groans.

An elf taps Niall on the shoulder. “Sorry,” he starts, and instantly Niall’s stomach sinks, “but Santa’s getting off in five minutes, we need to cut the line off here.”

“We’ve been waiting,” Niall starts, pointing to Theo like the wee boy is some kind of evidence. “He’s got his heart set on meeting Santa, ran away just to come over here.”

“Sorry,” the elf starts again.

“We can share,” Harry offers quickly. “Right, Lux? It’d be nice to share Santa.”

Lux heaves an aggrieved sigh. “Can we go to McDonald’s after?”

Harry ruffles her hair. “For being kind, yes. For blackmailing me, no.”

So Lux clambers Santa’s right knee and Niall plops Theo down onto Santa’s left. He doesn’t break into sobs or anything, which is good, Niall was afraid that might’ve been some kind of genetic thing. Lux, Santa, and Theo bend their heads together to make wishes.

“What do you think they’re asking for?” Niall asks, folding his arms across his chest. “I bet Theo’s asking to pet a reindeer.”

“I’d wish for that,” Harry interjects mildly. He winks at Niall when Niall looks over.

“Is she yours?” Niall asks, tipping his head toward Lux. “She seems smart.”

“No, she’s a family friend. I’m living with them till I graduate.”

“That’s nice,” Niall says. “That you get to be, like, I don’t know. Her big brother.”

“You’re not from around here?” Harry asks.

Niall snorts. “With this accent? No, I’m studying architecture in New York.”

Harry’s eyes light up. “I love architecture. Have you ever read Mrs. Dalloway?”

“Isn’t that the one where she’s, like, tree branches or something? It was wild, I loved that one.”

Harry looks delighted.

Lux guides Theo back over to their respective grown-ups, and Niall bends down and picks Theo up. Theo digs his little feet into Niall’s gut so that he can rest his head on the top of Niall’s shoulder, so Niall figures it’s probably naptime. He’ll go back to the soap store and buy some smelly shit, whatever.

“It was a pleasure,” Harry grins, doing the toothpaste commercial thing again. Niall can take his hand this time, and his grip is firm. His palm only lingers against Niall’s for a moment. “You should get them wine, by the way. His parents.”

“That’s actually perfect, thanks,” Niall sighs. And then, because Niall would’ve absolutely asked this bloke back to the toilets or his apartment by now if he weren’t responsible for a tiny little human being, “Do you want to grab a drink sometime, maybe?”

Looking relieved, Harry immediately says, “Yes, please.”

“Give me your number,” Niall suggests, fishing his phone out of his pocket. “We’ll sort everything else out later.”

So Harry taps his phone number into Niall’s phone, and sends himself a quick text before he hands Niall’s phone back. “Well,” he smiles, “see you.”

Niall only checks his messages when he’s falling asleep in his tiny childhood bedroom in south Boston. He finds the text Harry had sent, a quick emoji of a smiley face blowing a kiss. Niall thinks of his glitter boots and his smile and bonding over Theo’s potentially dirty diapers, and, well.

He texts him back with the same emoji the next morning.

***

Harry meets Niall at his favorite bar just three blocks from the house he grew up in four days later. They’ve been texting almost nonstop, and Snapchatting whenever they don’t have the time to text. Harry’s boring as fuck to Snapchat with, keeps sending pictures of his feet in various shoes and cataloging things in boxes and shelves. Niall now has a detailed knowledge of the shampoos and conditioners, band-aids and Midol, tampons and deodorant in the bathroom Harry shares with Lux’s parents.

“There you are,” Harry smiles, cruising right into the circle of Niall’s arms and pressing a kiss to his cheek. “Sorry,” he says, when he pulls back. He smells like chocolate chip cookies and cinnamon rolls, and his skin is warm and smooth. Niall works not to reel him back in. “Was that too much? I figured you already know what kind of fiber I take, it wasn’t –”

“Not that I asked for that,” Niall starts. He smiles. “But no, it’s fine.”

“Did Theo’s parents like the wine?” Harry asks. He takes his coat off and drapes it over the chair across from Niall. “You never said.”

Niall nods. “They loved it, yeah.”

“I’m going to be honest with you,” Harry says, not five minutes later, when he’s got his face buried in the menu. “I’m likely to spill something on myself, and I’ll probably like what you order better than what I order, so I’ll want to eat your food.”

“That’s okay,” Niall says. “I like everything here.”

Harry does, in fact, spill beer down his front when he starts laughing mid-swallow, and he eats most of Niall’s burger, so that Niall’s left with a limp salad and a mound of French fries, and it’s the best date he’s been on in a long, long time. The Christmas decorations are still up, probably will be until after New Year’s, as tradition goes. Harry’s skin looks so warm and soft in the multicolored Christmas lights, and his eyes, if weirdly intense, are very friendly.

“I’ve got to go to the bathroom,” Harry announces, dabbing tears of laughter out of his eyes with the paper napkin he actually spread over his lap. He puts his hand on Niall’s shoulder when he steps past him toward the bog. “That was an invitation, in case you didn’t know.”

He pounces on Niall the moment he crosses the threshold into the bathroom, his kiss landing mostly on Niall’s eyebrow before he aims again. Niall lets him back him into the door until he bumps into the varnished wood, and then he just blindly reaches out and flips the lock.

Harry mouths down Niall’s neck like an enthusiastic but ultimately fangless vampire, or his mum’s Hoover. He shoves his cold hands under the hem of Niall’s shirt, palming his ribs and pressing his fingertips against Niall’s shoulder blades like he’s giving him a massage.

Niall maneuvers them so that it’s Harry pressed up against the wall, his hands buried in Niall’s hair. Niall sinks to his knees, and Harry’s hands turn stroking and grateful even though Niall hasn’t even done anything yet.

It’s been a while since Niall’s been on his knees for another bloke, and he’s not just rusty in his knees, which are always sore in the winter. He remembers how much he likes it when he presses his face to the vee in Harry’s hip, his jeans pooled around his ankles, the smell of it. Boy and sex and drunken hookups, although none of them seemed this easy, inevitable.

“Wish I could Snapchat this,” Harry mumbles, when Niall’s just running his tongue along Harry’s dick. Partly to tease him, partly to tease himself. It’s a pain in the ass to come in his jeans, so he undoes his own fly and pushes his jeans and boxers aside just to be safe. Harry makes a whining sound in the back of his throat, needy-like. Niall takes him in and Harry thrusts forward immediately, Niall pulling off just to be sure that he’s not about to throw up everywhere. “Sorry, sorry,” he murmurs.

Niall bites the soft inside of his thigh just because he’s so relieved he didn’t actually vomit. “Why’d you want to Snap me?” he asks.

“Just,” Harry says, breathing sharp when Niall takes him down again, holding his hips against firm against the door, “wouldn’t call me – ah – boring, if you could see yourself.”

“I think that makes me not-boring, not you,” Niall mumbles around Harry’s dick in his mouth. Harry knots his fingers in Niall’s hair, pulling just sharp enough that Niall’s eyes flutter closed. And then Harry’s coming in his mouth. Niall swallows quickly out of instinct, and… “What the fuck, you almost taste sweet,” he mumbles, wiping the back of his mouth. For come, anyway.

Harry slumps to the floor in front of him. “I eat a lot of pineapple,” Harry mumbles. “C’mon, let me do you next.”

“Probably not getting back up for a minute,” Niall grimaces. He’s pretty sure his knees are entirely locked up.

“‘S alright,” Harry sighs, leaning forward to connect their mouths. He moans as though he likes the taste of himself in Niall’s mouth, the porn star, and Niall’s about to comment so when Harry wraps his big cool hand around Niall’s dick. He’s so cold that it’s shocking, but somehow in a hot way, the slick slide of his hand quickly growing warm. Harry keeps him teetering just shy of actually coming until Niall can’t concentrate to kiss him anymore, and then with one last flick of the wrist it’s all over.

Niall joins Harry with his back against the door, slowly straightening his legs until he has feeling past his thighs again. “Think people have literally bled out on this floor,” he wrinkles his nose.

“I should thank Lux,” Harry murmurs, sticking his fingers into the spaces between the buttons of Niall’s shirt like he couldn’t just unbutton it.

“What?” Niall asks, catching Harry’s hand and cradling it to his chest.

Harry rolls his head against the door. “For asking Santa to get me laid.”

“She did not ask for that.”

“I mean, no, but effectively, yeah.”

Niall grimaces. “No talking about kids until I brush my teeth, at least.”

Harry puts his head on Niall’s shoulder. “Fair,” he agrees.

Someone outside bangs on the bathroom door. “Are you two done in there or do I have to take a shit on the street?”

“Take it to the alley like a fucking gentleman,” Niall shouts back. The stranger curses softly and stomps off. Niall and Harry share a smile. “It’s good to be home,” Niall sighs, tucking Harry under his arm.


	2. chaper 2

Niall takes the 12:03 train from New York to Boston ‘cos that’s the earliest one he could catch. Harry had very mournfully shaken out his curls on Skype two weeks ago mumbling low about how he wouldn’t be seeing his family on his birthday for the first time _ever_ and how even his adopted family, Tom and Lou and Lux, were skipping town on him.

So here Niall is in Boston for Harry’s birthday. He makes a post on Instagram about how much he’s looking forward to wandering around Brooklyn tomorrow to look at architecture so that his family won’t know he’s in town. Then the bus rolls to a slow halt in the bus station, so he grabs his duffel bag from the rack overhead and shuffles off the bus slowly.

Public transportation is like playing a weird, real-life version of chat roulettes. People still whip out their dicks if you so much as look at them and you’ve just got to hit the red X before they take a picture of your face.

Well. The analogy _kind of_ works, anyway.

Harry’s waiting for him under the rows of glowing fluorescent lights at South Station. When the bus doors his open, it hits Niall all at once, like it always does when he finally gets to come home: a smell like exhaust and spilled gasoline, beer and beer pretzels. Niall shoulders his bag and pulls his cap down his forehead a little, just in case one of his half million cousins is around.

Harry hesitates for a split second before he reaches out and pulls Niall into the circle of his arms. He plucks Niall’s sunnies off the bridge of his nose, and then he sets about kissing Niall like he’s trying to swallow him whole. He pulls back to say, “You’re taller than I remembered,” when Niall’s just started wondering whether he ought to put his bag down.

“Thank you,” Niall says. “I drank a Red Bull.”

Harry loops his arms around Niall’s waist, so Niall lets his bag drop to the grimy bus terminal floor. Harry wrinkles his nose. “You can’t talk about those commercials in public, Niall. They’re too dirty. There could be children listening.”

Niall rolls his eyes. “Yeah, but they aren’t our kids, are they?”

“Mm, true, no babies around the house, either,” Harry says, tangling his fingers in Niall’s belt loops. “As soon as we get back from my friends’ dinner party,” he starts, leaning forward to smear his mouth across Niall’s again. His lips are unfairly red to begin with, and they only get redder and more swollen when Niall kisses him. Niall kisses him back for a long moment before he registers what Harry has said.

“What dinner party?” he asks, thinking of the contents of his bag. He quadruple-checked that the zipper was fully closed before he even got on the bus, never mind the number of times he got out of his seat to take a peek at it on every bus stop. It’s not like it’ll _all_ spoil if he leaves it in the bag but, uh, some of it will.

Harry licks his way down Niall’s throat, and then he pulls his head back up to open his mouth over Niall’s ear and kiss him messily before he bites down on the fragile shell. Niall tries very hard not to shiver.

He’s gotten to know Harry pretty well over the last month. He knows Harry eats his oatmeal with slices of banana and strawberry, and that he drinks at least three cups of green tea a day. His socks never match and he much prefers Modern poetry over Romantic and he wears his favorite Packers sweatshirt every Sunday even though he lives in South Boston.

He also talked Niall into doing freaky stuff with him on their Skype dates. Niall hasn’t actually seen his soft sweet face in real life since the day after their first date, when they met up to take Theo and Lux to the park, and he expected it to be a little bit weirder. Instead, he struggles with himself not to ask Harry if he can fit his whole fist in his mouth, because in some dark twisted corner of his brain he thinks that’d be kinda hot.

“Okay,” Niall says to himself. “Okay,” he says again, when Harry strokes his hands down till his fingers hook in Niall’s belt. “What dinner party?”

“That my friends are throwing me,” Harry explains sweetly. He blinks an errant curl out of his eyelashes. “You’ll come, right?”

Niall swallows. He doesn’t want to say this to Harry, who he’s known only slightly longer than the gallon of milk currently spoiling in his fridge, but he’d really just like to spend the whole weekend in Harry’s strange bubble of poetry fragments and shared games of Sims. Niall likes designing the houses, Harry likes filling them with the weirdest families he can think of.

But it’s Harry’s birthday. So he swallows again and smiles and nods, and Harry tangles his fingers with Niall’s. Niall bends slightly to pick his bag back up, and then they step out to the street, where Harry hails a taxi. The cab drops them off near the Fens. If there was a game on, maybe they’d go climb the steep green hill overlooking the baseball stadium and watch it play out on the big screen. As it is, Harry guides them gently south through the Fens, which is all shades of gray this time of year, to Parker street.

“Oh, look at this,” Harry says, a horribly fake note of surprise in his voice. “We’ve stumbled upon the Museum of Fine Arts! What a coincidence.”

“Coincidence,” Niall snorts, throwing away his corndog stick in the bin outside the museum. “Go on, then. It is your birthday, after all.”

They spend the better part of two hours wandering up and down the echoing, almost sacred halls of the museum. Harry loves the art in a different way than Niall does. He likes to play games with them.

“What,” he starts, pointing at an abstract painting of blue and red streaks, “is the story here?”

So Niall plays along, making up some story about the Yankees vs. the Red Sox in the championship game of the season, and Harry smiles indulgently. “It’s about my mom and dad,” he says. Which says a lot.

Harry buys them both t-shirts from the museum gift shop, so Niall lets him run his hands all over his chest and sides and hips so that Harry can size his shirt. “You’re like a starfish,” he finally gets out, laughing when Harry puts a hand over his chest. “I almost studied marine life,” Niall tells Harry. He wouldn’t, except that it feels safe in these echoing marble hallways, Harry’s shirt looped around his neck so that he doesn’t have to carry it. “But, uh. Seemed a little unrealistic.”

“Jobs aren’t going?” Harry asks, touching Niall’s sleeve for a moment like he’s just glad that he’s there.

“Can’t dive,” Niall laughs. “Would panic, under the water. And didn’t want to work in a lab.”

Harry adjusts the way Niall’s button-up shirt is laying over his collarbones. “Would’ve done that, we’d not have met,” he finally says. “Besides, I like watching you draw.”

Maybe that’s Niall’s favorite part of having Harry. They can sit at their desks two hundred miles apart and not even speak, but he can turn away from his drafting table and spot Harry poring over a giant book and it’s soothing, somehow.

“C’mon, then,” he says. “Let’s go to dinner.”

Harry’s friends have the pinched look of people who have spent the better part of the last four years staring at books, and maybe sometimes closing their faces in them, based on their pinched faces. Niall remembers undergrad clearly as terribly exciting, but he always forgets that the excitement is mixed in with an outrageous work load. Their faces look exceptionally young in the flickering candlelight of this Italian restaurant, which feels a little like sacrilege on Niall’s part, but he can make sacrifices.

Niall doesn’t understand half of what they’re talking about, so drinks a lot of wine and listens attentively in case he’s called on for his opinion. It’s nice, anyway, watching Harry preen under their attention and still look at him when they’ve moved as if to check that Niall’s still looking, that he still cares. Niall squeezes his knee under the table and takes another sip of wine for every time he thinks about dragging Harry to the restaurant loo to get off together.

By the time they’re divvying the bill and calling cabs, Niall’s quite drunk. He realizes Harry’s almost as bad off as he is when Harry stumbles pushing his wooden chair back, the legs scraping a little over the sticky tile floor. Harry’s friends send them off with a gift bottle of wine, which Harry insists they share on the walk home. Niall’s sure he has bus fare or maybe even cab fare if he doesn’t mind going over on his credit card bill this month.

Harry seems like he’s enjoying their drunken lurch home, though. He keeps one arm firmly around Niall’s neck or his waist, and he leans in every half a block to stick his nose under Niall’s ear and smell him.

“Can you fit your fist in your mouth?” Niall asks, when they’re leaning on each other at a crosswalk. A little behind, the usual group of roadside vendors gather their wares, and across the street, a couple of women rush up the sidewalk, their coats flapping against their shins.

Harry keeps squinting at the keys on his keyring, trying and failing to put the same locker key into his door over and over again. So Niall takes the key from him and fits it into the lock, and Harry drunkenly smiles at him. Niall takes his first look around Harry’s house, but it doesn’t feel new or unfamiliar. He’s seen it on Skype several times when Harry takes him with him to make a cup of tea or answer the door to accept another book from interlibrary loan.

The brown pleather couch looks soft and broken-in, and there’s a clutch of toys in a bin beside the TV on the television stand that must belong to Lux. By some kind of unspoken mutual agreement, Niall follows Harry to his room without saying anything, like they might wake up Lux or her parents.

Niall sets his bag on Harry’s bed and takes a deep breath, smelling his fruity shampoo and fresh detergent. Niall pokes at the zipper on his bag, thinking of the gift inside. He could laugh at himself, honestly.

He pokes his head into the bathroom when he hears water running. Harry’s sat on the edge of the tub without any clothes on, blinking owlishly at the faucet. “Get in here,” Harry says, when he spots him. “Have you ever taken a bath while you’re drunk?”

“I try not to take baths in general, thanks,” Niall says. He steps out of his shoes and starts unbuttoning his shirt. “But I’ll make an exception.”

It goes well at first, Niall thinks. Harry fills the tub with bath bubbles and his skin goes flushed and soft-looking, like a peach. Then the smell of bubblegum fills up the bathroom, and Niall finds one of Lux’s bath toys wedged under his arse, and Harry laughs so hard he snorts a bunch of bubbles.

“Ow,” he says, his eyes tearing. Niall musses Harry’s hair, which is only curling more in the steaming bath, and Niall gets that feeling, deep in his chest, like laughter he doesn’t have to let out. “I was trying to be romantic,” Harry says, when Niall discovers Lux’s bath chalk in a soggy cardboard box beside the tub. He starts drawing a dick on the tile wall, because he’s a grown man. “Like, first time over, right?”

Niall stops doodling dicks onto the bathroom wall. “Me too,” he admits. It’s painful enough to think about the rose petals and CD of Ed Sheeran songs to shag to; he can’t quite bring himself to say it aloud.

“Tomorrow,” Harry says, blinking groggily from his corner of the tub. Niall reaches over and pulls the stopper out so the water will drain and hopefully force them to go to bed. He’s slept in bathtubs before, and it’s never good for his back. “Yeah?”

“Got all weekend,” Niall says softly.

The next morning, he wakes up to someone poking his bum. Niall swats Harry’s hand away, mumbling a groggy, “Ger off till I’ve had some coffee, you nympho.” Someone takes a sharp breath steeped in giggles, like something out of a high school movie, and Niall freezes in a panic that he’s just spoken to little Lux.

He lifts his head off the pillow and finds Harry snoring beside him, a girl who looks just like Harry leaning over the side of the bed. She smiles just like Harry does before Harry says something terrible. “Surprise,” she grins.


	3. chapter 3

Harry rushes about his bedroom trying to get dressed faster than is humanly possible. He pulls a pair of joggers up his narrow hips so that they’re backwards and inside out, and then he pulls a t-shirt on while he toes a sock onto his foot. His big head gets caught in the sleeve hole, and he pops back out of the shirt with a betrayed expression bordering on something like panic.

“It’s okay,” Niall volunteers feebly. Harry’s sister woke him up and he’d given such a fright that he’d kicked Harry awake, too, so now he’s limping around his bedroom in the house he shares with Tom and Lou and Lux trying to find a shirt that’ll fit over head.

“Of course it is,” Harry breaths, his face melting into that smile that could probably light up a whole room. Or something. Niall’s not much for poetry and it’s too early for him to think very hard, anyway. “It’s just, they’re _here._ ”

“Oh,” Niall says, baffled. He spends the vast majority of his weekends trying to avoid coming home so that he won’t be tempted to get plastered with his cousins at one of the Irish-themed pubs in Southie where he’s already had his share of scrapes and sleepless nights spend tossing up everything he drank, and he’s supposedly outgrowing that kind of stuff. Privately he can’t wait till he graduates architecture school so he can finally come and go out with his cousins every weekend again.

Well, so. Maybe he understands Harry better than he thinks. Especially with Theo just a few blocks away, even Niall could admit that he’d been thinking about stopping by on his way out of town to see the little lad for a few hours and maybe a trip to the park to play on the monkey bars or the seesaw.

Niall swallows, his throat dry. “I guess I’ll, uh, collect my things then,” he says. It sounds a miserable thought. He’s not looking forward to arguing with the ticket-teller at the train station to swap out his voucher for an earlier ride, or for the long ride back to Boston alone before he’s even worked out all the soreness from sitting through it to get here.

Harry stops trying to strangle himself with a tank top he scooped up off the floor. On the other side of the door, Niall can hear Harry’s mom and his sister laughing gently, their laughter like tinkling bells. Nothing at all like Harry’s shouting, horsey laughter, even if Niall’s kind of weirdly a little fond of it now that he’s heard him laugh so hard he started crying.

“What do you mean?” Harry asks. His expression is wide open, and he looks a little devastated. Niall finishes lacing up his boots and stands slowly, his heart going much too fast. “You aren’t going to stay?”

Niall slides his hands into his back pockets and shrugs, like he’s a little kid trying to ask his third grade crush to be his boyfriend. “You want me to?”

Harry reaches out and puts his hands on Niall’s shoulders, which is something Niall really likes about him. He’s kind of a touchy-feely guy, too, but Harry’s even worse about it than he is, especially when he’s upset. It’s just nice, that Harry still wants to touch him even when, for a moment there, he looked like he thought Niall was going to hurt his feelings.

“You don’t have to,” Harry says, sliding one hand down Niall’s chest till he can hook his fingers in the front pocket of Niall’s shirt. “But you’d be doing me a big favor.”

Niall breathes deep. “Okay,” he says. “Sure, I – okay.”

Harry steps back and scrounges another wrinkled t-shirt off the floor, this one advertising – whoops, not advertising. It was a Sea World t-shirt but someone came along and changed the banner under the whale cartoon to read Sea World _of Hurt_. Niall fights the urge to smile or roll his eyes and settles for both. Harry pulls the tanktop out from under the collar of his shirt and heads for the door. Niall stops him just in time; he’s still wearing the backwards and inside-out gym shorts, and there’s a faintly suspicious stain on the hem.

“Nice to meet you properly,” Harry’s sister, Gemma, says. She rises from the soft blue sofa and Harry’s soft fleece blanket drops onto the cushions. She holds out her hand and Niall summons up every ounce of nerve he’s amassed over the last six years of undergrad and post-grad schooling and the two years he spent hanging around the boxing gym Liam took classes at to square his shoulders and take her hand. Her skin is warm and soft, and he makes himself look her in the eye, fully prepared to turn and run if this goes badly.

Gemma steps closer to him without letting his hand go and tucks him into a hug. Niall pauses for a moment before he hugs her back. He peers over her shoulder at Harry and his mom, who’re both smiling fit to get stuck like that. Niall clears his throat.

“Anne,” Harry’s mom introduces herself. Niall would be able to pick her out of a crowd easy, not just because Harry’s a dead ringer for her – is that weird? He’ll have to think about that harder later – but because Harry made him look at about thirty baby pictures of him with his mom when her birthday rolled around and he was stuck in Boston and couldn’t go home to see her. Niall’s been meaning to let Harry meet some of his relatives, because he’s got family to spare.

They set off to breakfast just up the road at Harry’s favorite café. It’s a students’ haunt for sure, with battered wooden tables and scuffed wooden floors, and the overwhelming smell of caffeine and stress. It’s nice, actually. Niall missed it. Grad school smells a lot more like burnt coffee and fresh ink and paper, which is good, in its own way. It’s funny how nostalgic he’s gotten about undergrad since he’s been out, like he didn’t used to spend a good chunk of his weekends laying on the floor beside the couch, sharing a blunt with Zayn, wishing this part of his life was already over.

Harry plays charming host because, well, he _is_ a charming host, and it’s not as awkward as it should be to meet the family of the guy he’s been hooking up with on Skype for the last month. Which is what this is, really. They’re not boyfriends, they’re only just starting to be friends. Niall has to remind himself of that fact every time he looks up from cutting his pancakes into neat bite-sized pieces and finds Harry watching him squished into a booth next to his sister, his eyes so soft.

They take their leftover bread sticks to the Fens to feed the ducks after lunch. It’s still cold, so Harry keeps coming back from toeing at the lake shore to warm himself under Niall’s arm for a few minutes before he ventures out again to try and pet the ducklings. Niall doesn’t have the best track record with ducks since that time one pecked him – long story, _don’t_ ask – but it’s nice to hear Anne talk about the farm where she raised her kids and their long and storied history with farm animals.

“You didn’t tell me you were afraid of horses,” Niall tells Harry on the short walk to the bus stop for Quincy Market downtown.

Harry slips his hand into Niall’s at the dreary bus stop. It’s not a particularly beautiful day but that makes it all better, somehow, like it could be an ordinary day. His chin tucked into his collar, Harry laughs. “I would’ve gotten around to it eventually. What’s it matter?”

“Dunno, might’ve wanted to take you horseback riding for Valentine’s Day,” Niall says, only half-joking. He’s not sure why he cares, either, except that he sort of wants to know everything about Harry.

Harry lifts his head. “Really?” he asks, and it hits Niall what he’s just said. You don’t really make Valentine’s Day plans with your not-boyfriend, or the guy you’ve been hooking up with for Skype sex.

“Um,” Niall starts, and their bus turns the corner, its squeaky brakes screaming in the damp afternoon.

Quincy Market is thriving even on a dreary day, and while Harry and Anne take their time perusing the antiques shop, Niall and Gemma wander into Games People Play, a nostalgic board game shop. It’s got every board game Niall ever played as a kid and mounds and mounds of stuff he’s never even heard of.

“Harry loves these,” Gemma says quietly.

Niall’s not sure what to make of it unless it’s what it sounds like, and then there’s the niggling fact that it’s been a month, and – jeez, but he’s even tired of thinking the words. “He’s young,” Niall says in reply.

“Not as young as he was yesterday,” Gemma says dryly, on her little brother’s birthday. Niall gets him a Scrabble-type game even though he knows it means they’ll spend most of the evening learning how to play. Gemma doesn’t comment, just squeezes his shoulder and then pokes him in the ass so that he jumps about ten feet into the air. He rolls his eyes.

“Thank you so much for coming,” Harry says, squeezing his mom so tight that she might be crushed against his chest.

“Next time we’ll try not to surprise you,” Gemma adds, squeezing Niall’s hand.

They watch the train piston away to take Anne and Gemma back home, and then Niall and Harry turn to walk home. It feels a little like Christmas morning after the presents are all open, before you get dressed to go to Mass and see the rest of your family for Christmas dinner. A lull, like the second of silence in a song before the bass crashes back down.

Harry hangs his keys on the little hook beside the door and stops to toe his Converse off, so Niall drifts into the kitchen to look for a snack. He pulls his head out of Harry’s mostly empty fridge – maybe they can order takeout – and finds Harry leaned against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest, his bottom lip caught between his teeth.

Niall straightens slowly. “What’s wrong?”

“You were really great with them,” Harry says, his voice soft.

“Thanks,” Niall says. “It wasn’t a problem, I – I had a good time, too.”

Harry’s shoulders slump. Niall closes the fridge door and walks over to him, wondering what to say, or do. He sets his hands on Harry’s hips and Harry takes care of the rest, unfolding his arms and sweeping Niall into a tight hug. It’s not like they talked anything out, but Niall feels settled, somehow, like he hasn’t in a long while. “What time does your train leave tomorrow?” Harry asks speculatively.

Niall says, “Two o’clock.”

Harry nods, and it’s weird and maybe a little too early, but Niall already misses him. He casts about for something to say. “Got you a present, you know.”

He didn’t have time to wrap it, but that’s okay, because honestly it probably would not look any better than if Theo wrapped it. Gemma was right: Harry is a fan of his board games. Niall eases himself down onto the living floor across from him with his phone out, already placing their takeout order.

Neither of them really understand the rules and Harry really, really wants to win, so Niall lets him have his way. Harry takes Niall’s face between his hands and kisses him softly, then harder, asking for more.

“Valentine’s Day,” Harry says later, apropos of nothing. Niall jerks out of a light doze, mindful of the fact that he’s fallen asleep with his mouth open and been drooling. It’s always the worst thing. “That’s just a couple of weeks from now.”

Niall listens to his heart give one heavy thud, then two. “Could come visit me,” he finally hears himself say. He can see the column of Harry’s throat and the soft curves of his shoulders and chest under beams of moonlight filtering in through his window shades, and he couldn’t have _not_ said it. His voice comes out so thin he could do a murder. Niall clears his throat. “If you want.”

Harry rolls onto his side, his eyes shining even in the dim room. “Okay,” he says, and smiles.

Later, he digs out the transit map of bus routes that he got his freshman year of college and spreads it across Niall’s bare back, because “Just Google it, idiot,” isn’t romantic enough for Harry to stare at during the odd moments between papers and lectures and readings and dinners with his friends.

“Did I ever tell you I can predict the future?” Harry asks.

“No,” Niall says. Harry’s going for light but Niall can hear the note of nerves in his voice and he turns his head on the pillow to glimpse Harry above him, worrying over his bottom lip.

Harry flashes Niall a nervous smile and says, in his most ostentatious voice, “Well, ccording to my calculations-” “Google,” Niall coughs, “-if I catch the subway to Southie station and take the train to New York, I can be at yours by dinnertime on Valentine’s Day.” Harry traces his route along the route map so that Niall squirms beneath him.

“Stop, that tickles,” he sighs into the pillow.

“From all the way up here,” Harry goes on, running his fingers up the map, up the middle of Niall’s spine, “to all the way down here,” he slides his hand under the sheets, over Niall’s bum, and squeezes.

Niall snorts, softly, so Harry tosses the map aside and plays connect the dots with Niall’s freckles. “This one,” he says, “is Boston, and this is New York,” he touches one on the side of Niall’s ribs, “and here’s where we’ll meet to exchange blowies in the toilet,” another freckle, this one on top of his shoulder, “and this is the one where you ask me to go steady with you.”

Niall blinks against the rush of blood in his head. He understands the nervous note in Harry’s voice, now. “Go steady,” he repeats faintly. “What are we, fifty?”

“Shh,” Harry murmurs. “I’m predicting the future.” Harry leans down and kisses the spot. “I say yes.” He scratches one of the freckles near Niall’s lower back, “Here’s where you get way too drunk before our six-week anniversary or something, and I’m mad at you.” Harry leans down and kisses that one, too. He spreads his fingers over three freckles. “These are where I say ‘I love you.’ We’re so happy.” He kisses each one deliberately.

Niall can hear how low and deliberate his own breaths are, and he feels so tense under Harry’s hand and mouth. It’s not the kind of bedroom talk he’s prone to having, and he’s a little angry at himself for how much he wants it. How much he wants.

Harry carefully touches one of the freckles on Niall’s throat. “Here’s where we fight. I’m sorry about it.” He presses his lips to Niall’s neck, and Niall moves his head to allow Harry access. Harry noses up his jaw. “We’re happy again,” he murmurs, kissing the freckle right in the middle of Niall’s throat, “and we live happily ever after.” He kisses Niall’s lips.

Harry’s mouth is soft, gentle, letting Niall kiss him rather than concentrating on kissing back. “Seems a bit soon, doesn’t it?” Niall asks, when Harry’s all but melted onto him, soft and pliable against Niall’s back.

Harry strokes his hand down Niall’s side. “Like I said,” he says seriously, “it was just the future.”

Unexpectedly, Niall laughs. “We’ll see, I guess.”

Harry shoves his big head under Niall’s shoulder until Niall takes the hint and wraps his arm around Harry’s waist and brings him in, so that they’re chest to chest. He can feel Harry’s heart banging against his sternum, or maybe it’s his own.

“Mm,” Harry hums, and it shouldn’t sound so much like a promise. It does.

 


End file.
